The Surprising Reason You Can Get Kicked Off a Plane

Most travelers know that acting disorderly, harassing the flight crew, appearing (or being) intoxicated, and making threats can get you kicked off a plane—or even worse. But hidden in plain sight of those very same conditions of carriage is another, less known, more surprising rule: Smelling bad.

No, we're not exaggerating—you can actually be kicked off a plane for olfactory production that is less than rosy. And it's not just budget airlines or puddle jumpers where you're squashed in with five other passengers also flying from Belize City to a tiny coastal town that have these rules: American Airlines, one of the "big three" U.S. carriers, notes that it has the right to refuse transport—or may remove you from your flight at any point—if you "Have an offensive odor not caused by a disability or illness." Other major carriers including JetBlue ("Persons who have an offensive odor, except where such condition is the result of a qualified disability"), Spirit Airlines ("has an offensive odor unless caused by a qualified disability"), Delta Air Lines ("When the passenger has a malodorous condition"), Alaska Airlines ("Passengers who have an offensive odor (such as from a draining wound or improper hygiene, provided it is not the result of a disability"), and Hawaiian Airlines ("Persons who have an offensive body odor not attributable to a disability or illness"), have similar clauses—not to mention similar lawyers who write in similar ways.

Airplanes never smell that great to begin with (hello, recycled air and reheated in-flight meals), which makes it unlikely that passengers routinely smell so bad that they get booted from a flight in spades. Still, it has happened: In 2010, a U.S. passenger was asked to leave a regional flight in Canada, and in 2014, a Frenchman was reportedly denied carriage from Paris to Dallas for smelling bad. "I covered myself with Dior perfume at the duty free shop," he reportedly told Agence France-Presse, although we don't know if that was the cause or the attempted solution.